Considered by many scholars to be among the most brilliant novels written in French during the eighteenth century, Lettres de Mistriss Henley publiées par son amie was composed as a response to Samuel de Constant's misogynist novel, The Sentimental Husband (1783). Charrière presents six letters penned by a Mistriss Henley, who has chosen a decent and affectionate man as her life's companion only to discover that she cannot bear sharing his life. An immediate success on its publication in 1784, Mistriss Henley was greeted with acclaim and controversy: one reader called the book "literarily excellent" but "morally dangerous in various ways." Remarkable for its empathy for both spouses, Mistriss Henley is not only a moving work of fiction but also one of the most modern novels of its day.
Born in 1740 to a Dutch aristocratic family, Isabelle de Charrière (née van Zuylen) published her first novel, The Nobleman, in her early twenties. During the next four decades she wrote several important novels and lively correspondence. In 1771 she married her brothers' former tutor and moved with him to Colombier, a small village in Switzerland, where she lived until her death in 1805.